SuZir
Well-Known Member
To be honest I don't believe it is possible to ruin the baby that easily. If situation is not seriously abusive or neglectful on basic needs babies tend to do just fine. After all human is one of the most adaptable species in this planet, right there with rats and cockroaches. Also our young ones tend to survive just nicely from many different kind of situations. Neurologically untypical kids are of course not that adaptable as neurotypical but even them don't usually suffer much on which parenting style parents choose, while they are babies or toddlers.
To my family the baby sling was heaven send. I live in the place there we have a luxury of long (and at least partly paid) parental leaves. And I had a luxury to be a stay at home mother few more years even after those years I was in parental leaves. But I was in the situation, where I had an hyperactive and challenging three year old and a baby. While there was also some jealousy issues the main problem was, that difficult child was very rowdy and impulsive child who could have easily hurt the baby in accident. I literally couldn't turn my eyes off from him, if easy child was on the floor. Without sling I couldn't have gotten anything done. With the sling easy child was safely and happily with me, while I had both hands free to use to do house work and look after difficult child.
easy child also hit all the normal milestones with his motoric development (well, he tended to hit them early) and also with independence skills. If anything, he did much better than most.
It also helped a lot with nursing. Both my sons nursed at least every three hours, mostly every two and worst times once an hour. With the difficult child I spent most of my time sitting and nursing, but easy child I could nurse while standing and doing something else at the same time. Thank God I was able to nurse them, having to handle it with formula and bottles would had been a nightmare. And no, they didn't eat that often because of nursing. In few short months it will be 18 years from difficult child and 14 years from easy child to switching solely to table foods and they are still hungry every three hours or more often. Luckily they at least don't wake up during night to eat that often any more.
Co-sleeping very seldom leads to accidents if parents are sober. And yes, you should never co-sleep if drunk or high or after taking psychoactive drugs. And there are more than enough accidents after baby climbs out of their crib and falls or even gets out of the front door without parents noticing (and yeah, also my difficult child did both, we did not co-sleep with him.) With easy child co-sleeping also helped immensely with nursing him at night. If I had needed to get up from bed that three to five times a night I would had been exhausted like I was with difficult child.
So my experience at the time was, that baby sling and co-sleeping really saved me with easy child. And at the time I also thought easy child being less fussy and easier baby than difficult child and his better development was due to those parenting choices. Now I do think those things were individual differences between my sons, not anything I did or didn't do. But baby sling and co-sleeping really made easy child's babyhood much easier and more enjoyable for me and gave me a lot of freedom compared to not doing those things with the difficult child.
To my family the baby sling was heaven send. I live in the place there we have a luxury of long (and at least partly paid) parental leaves. And I had a luxury to be a stay at home mother few more years even after those years I was in parental leaves. But I was in the situation, where I had an hyperactive and challenging three year old and a baby. While there was also some jealousy issues the main problem was, that difficult child was very rowdy and impulsive child who could have easily hurt the baby in accident. I literally couldn't turn my eyes off from him, if easy child was on the floor. Without sling I couldn't have gotten anything done. With the sling easy child was safely and happily with me, while I had both hands free to use to do house work and look after difficult child.
easy child also hit all the normal milestones with his motoric development (well, he tended to hit them early) and also with independence skills. If anything, he did much better than most.
It also helped a lot with nursing. Both my sons nursed at least every three hours, mostly every two and worst times once an hour. With the difficult child I spent most of my time sitting and nursing, but easy child I could nurse while standing and doing something else at the same time. Thank God I was able to nurse them, having to handle it with formula and bottles would had been a nightmare. And no, they didn't eat that often because of nursing. In few short months it will be 18 years from difficult child and 14 years from easy child to switching solely to table foods and they are still hungry every three hours or more often. Luckily they at least don't wake up during night to eat that often any more.
Co-sleeping very seldom leads to accidents if parents are sober. And yes, you should never co-sleep if drunk or high or after taking psychoactive drugs. And there are more than enough accidents after baby climbs out of their crib and falls or even gets out of the front door without parents noticing (and yeah, also my difficult child did both, we did not co-sleep with him.) With easy child co-sleeping also helped immensely with nursing him at night. If I had needed to get up from bed that three to five times a night I would had been exhausted like I was with difficult child.
So my experience at the time was, that baby sling and co-sleeping really saved me with easy child. And at the time I also thought easy child being less fussy and easier baby than difficult child and his better development was due to those parenting choices. Now I do think those things were individual differences between my sons, not anything I did or didn't do. But baby sling and co-sleeping really made easy child's babyhood much easier and more enjoyable for me and gave me a lot of freedom compared to not doing those things with the difficult child.
